Government MPs pack up their offices as polls count Gillard out 100 days before Australian election

Australia’s first female Prime Minister Julia Gillard is facing an historic
defeat at the nation’s September election, new polls have shown, with MPs in
her own party admitting they are packing up their offices in anticipation of
losing power.

Julia Gillard has become the centre of a bitter row over sexism Photo: Getty Images

Ilya Gridneff in Sydney

2:19PM BST 06 Jun 2013

With 100 days to go before the September 14 poll, both sides of the political spectrum are predicting the Labor leader will be thoroughly trounced by the Opposition - despite a booming economy, high living standards, and the fact that conservative leader Tony Abbott is also unpopular with voters.

A Newspoll survey this week found that just 30 per cent of the electorate said they would give their primary vote to Labor, while AC Nielson pollster John Stirton said that, based on history and current trends, the opposition have a 75-80 per cent chance of winning the election. “I’d only say Labor has a 20-25 per cent chance,” he said.

Former Labor MP Maxine McKew, who defeated ex-prime minister John Howard in the 2007 election, described the situation as an “absolute tragedy”. “Labor has been in tight fights before and had its back to the wall, but I don’t think we’ve ever experienced anything quite like this,” she said.

At least two veteran Labor MPs today admitted they have already packed up their Parliament House offices. Victorian MP Alan Griffin and Sydney MP Daryl Melham told local media they both packed up their Canberra offices in anticipation of not returning as the current session of Parliament heads into its final two weeks before rising ahead of the election. Mr Griffin has held his seat since 1996 and Mr Melham since 1990, but both doubt they will return to office.

Ms Gillard, who came to power after deposing former prime minister Kevin Rudd in a coup in 2010, has faced threats to her position before - but this time she has been unable to turn her unpopularity around. Recently she even had to endure the taunts of schoolchildren after two troublemakers lobbed sandwiches at her on visits to their respective schools.

This week the ALP plummeted into further crisis with one MP, Joel Fitzgibbon, openly mocking the party’s talking points on the nation’s most popular morning television show, joking: “I’ve been told to say the only poll that counts is the one on election day.”

Despite a convincing win over Mr Rudd in 2010, Ms Gillard’s leadership has been rocky from the start. To form a government she needed a coalition with the Greens Party and three Independent MPs, leaving her prone to attack for compromise and policy wobbles.

Meanwhile Mr Rudd’s ghost haunted the Welsh-born former union-leader throughout her entire leadership. The popularlity of the former prime minister, who at one point had a 60 percent approval rating, fuelled much of the electorate’s dislike of Ms Gillard, and gave him the ammunition he needed to make at least two attempts to topple her.

However despite his popularity with the voters, Mr Rudd - a former Queensland bureaucrat famous for a foul temper - was so despised within the party that he never regained the leadership.

The bad news for Ms Gillard comes as a slew of senior MPs and former ministers announce retirement at the next election.